Interesting Facts

1st August 1907 - Robert Baden-Powell opened the first experimental Scout camp on Brownsea Island. 20 scouts attended. 1908 - Lloyd George introduced the Old Age Pensions Act that provided between 1s. and 5s. a week to people over seventy. These pensions were only paid to citizens on incomes that were not over 12s.

Famous last words is an idiom that's used when someone makes a definite statement which is shown very soon, and in an embarrassing way, to be wrong. But in this case I mean it more literally. Towards the end of his life, Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the scouting movement, wrote this letter:- "Dear Scouts, If you have ever seen the play 'Peter Pan' you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that, when the time came for him to die, he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye. “Remember, it is the last time you will ever hear from me, so think it over. “I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have a happy life too. “I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness does not come fro...

The World Scout emblem, a trefoil, is one of the world's best known symbols. (It was taken from the symbol for the 'North Point' which is used on maps to orient them with North". The three tips of the emblem are taken to represent the three main points of the Scout Promise. And the two decorative five-pointed stars are taken in some countries to stand for truth and knowledge. Listen Here

The founder of the scout movement, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell's Godfather was the son of railway pioneer George Stephenson. (Baden Powell was born in London on February 22, 1857. He was the sixth son and the eighth of ten children of the Reverend Baden-Powell, a Professor at Oxford University. He was buried in Kenya.)

Lots of famous people were Scouts . . . Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter was a scout David Beckham was a scout. Paul McCartney, Billy Connelly, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, were all scouts. And finally, Bill Gates (Microsoft's Owner) was a scout. (I wonder what badges they got?)

11 of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon were scouts. (In fact according to the Scout's own web site, of the 214 former and present astronauts, 142 were Scouts. One small step for man, one giant leap for scouting.)

There are now 28 million scouts globally. (There are over half a million Scouts in the UK alone. That would be one huge Jamboree!)

Only six countries have no scouts - Cuba, Burma, Laos, China, North Korea and Andorra. (A strange mixture of scoutlessness. Come on guys! Join in the Jamboree!)